Our First Mother: Genesis 3:16; 4:1-2, 25

I wanted to write an article that paid homage to mothers. This coming Sunday May 8, 2022 is celebrated as Mother’s Day. I had received an invitation from a friend who is a pastor. His church will be celebrating Mother’s Day and Women’s Day. In the meantime my daughter had asked me to help her and a friend. She and her friend wanted to take their mothers to dinner. Since my wife, my daughter’s mother has disabilities resulting from a stroke; I need to transport Marilyn to the restaurant. Then the news report that there is a leak that the Supreme Court is likely to rule to overthrow Roe V. Wade the court decision that gives women the right to have an abortion. All of these things reminded me of my own mother. I am so thankful to God for my mother. After much self reflection, I was led to write about Eve the mother of all the living.

I want to write about Eve based on what is written about her in the Holy Scriptures. I do not intend to debate issues such as a woman’s right to chose, the protection of the unborn. Those that do not give priority to the authority of scriptures will possibly disagree with anything that I might say. After all I am a male from birth and I cannot fully understand the issue of abortion from a woman’s point of view. This article chronicles the life of Eve including her failures, struggles, and her efforts to have some relationship with God.

According to the scriptures God created the heavens and the earth. After creating plant life and animal life God created a man. God prepared a garden and placed the man in the garden to take care of it. God saw that the man needed help to do his job so God created a helper for him. God created a woman to help the man to carry out his responsibilities (See Genesis 1:26-28). When God first presented the helper to the man he simply called her woman because God had created his helper from his own flesh. Apparently the man and the woman were getting along fine carrying out the responsibilities that God had given them. Then, something happened to interrupt and mess up their lives. The woman having been deceived by the serpent ate the forbidden fruit and her husband agreed to eat also. God drove them from the garden. History tells us that for centuries the world has blamed the woman for humankind’s fallen condition and women have suffered because of the woman’s sin. So, let us look at the first woman Eve who is the mother of all living.

While still in the garden God confronts the deceiving serpent, the woman and the man. Each one of them will live a more difficult life than they first were created to live. The serpent would crawl, the woman would have pain in childbearing, and the man would have to work hard. The man and the woman would not be allowed to live in the garden any longer. They were driven out of the garden into a world separated from God and under a curse because of the sin of the man and the woman. However, God had a plan for the restoration and redemption of His creation. God’s plan was that the woman’s seed would give birth to a redeemer. The man is not included in this plan. Our scripture text is an account of Eve after she has been driven out of the garden into the world. We will see that Eve does not sit around worrying about her fallen state. Instead, she is focused on how the Lord is blessing her where she is. I believe that all of us should follow Eve’s example.

After Adam and Eve had been driven from the garden they continued to remain in their relationship. They would try their best to do what God created them to do. “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Gen. 1:28, NASB). The man and the woman knew that they were sinners separated from God. Yet, they were still God’s creation with a purpose given to them by the Lord. They would live with the hope of the promise of God that a redeemer would come to restore them to a favorable and right relationship with God (See Gen. 3:15).

Genesis 4 begins to tell how the man and the woman carried out their responsibilities. The scripture says, “Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, ‘I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD” (4:1). Did you catch that shift in emphasis from the man to the woman? The man provided the sperm. Eve did not discount his contribution, but Eve acknowledged that her ability to conceive and give birth to the child was aided by the hand of God. Notice how verse two is worded. This verse continues with the story emphasizing Eve. The scripture says, “Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground” (4:2). The Genesis story and the entirety of the Old Testament are about God working out His plan to provide a redeemer through the seed of the woman.

The scriptures tell us that God is a Spirit and God cannot be seen. God communicated with the man and the woman in the garden, but while they heard God, they did not see God. The scripture tells us that the woman responded to the serpent. It was not the voice of God that she heard. It was the fact that she could see the serpent. This was more convincing to her. Eve was convinced that the voice coming from the serpent was more reliable because she could see where the voice was coming from. It allowed her to use her own intellectual abilities apart from God. Eve was moved to live not by faith, but by sight. Her decisions based on what she could see with her own eyes and understand with her own intellectual abilities led to her falling from her standing with God.

As we continue with the story recorded in Genesis 4:3 we learn that apart from God the sons of the woman and the man have flawed characters. The older son Cain murdered his young brother Abel because of jealousy and envy. As the world was being populated the seed of Cain have the same flawed character that Cain had. This is not a male versus female issue. This is a character issue for both the male and the female. We should remember that when God approached the serpent, the man, and the woman in the garden neither the man or the woman took responsibility for their own actions. Instead they placed the blame on someone else. The woman blamed the serpent. The man blamed the woman (See Gen. 3:7-24).

The man and his wife continued to struggle in their lives. They have an innate desire to please the Lord, but sin separates them from having the relationship with God needed to perfectly serve Him and obey Him. Genesis gives us a bleak picture for the future of human beings. Abel was dead and the world was being populated by descendants of Cain who had been driven from the presence of God (See Gen. 4:9-24). Corruption continued to increase in the world, but God remembered His promise. A redeemer would come through the seed of the woman. The scripture says, “Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, ‘God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him” (4:25, NASB). “To Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD” (4:26, NASB).

Eve is the mother of all the living. She obviously struggled with the same issues that women today struggle with. How does a woman respond to the emotional and mental strain—the pain of childbearing? According to the scripture the pain is a given, and it cannot be escaped. Eve suffered, but Eve focused on her relationship with the Lord. She was able to endure the pain of knowing that one son had senselessly murdered her other son. In spite of it everything, Eve continued to hold to the promise of God. She could not go back and change the things that she had done. She could not change the words of the Lord. Eve survived her pain and she continued to do what she could to do her part in the plan of God’s salvation for all human beings. She no longer lived by what she could see and understand. Rather, she now lived by faith. She could not see God, but she knew that God is real. She could not see the future, but she had faith in the God who holds the future in His hands. Instead of listening to deceiving words that come from the world, she now lives by the words of God. With faith in God she did not fear anything. Her security was not in her personal desires and intellectual understanding. Rather, her security was in the words of God.